A fast, suckering native shrub of streambanks and moist thickets across eastern North America, grown for huge flat-topped cymes of tiny lemon-scented white flowers in early summer and the clusters of dark elderberry drupes that follow. Spreads by root suckers into naturalized colonies 5-12 feet tall and wide; the flowers feed butterflies and the showy fruit feeds birds. The raw berries are not eaten fresh — they are cooked into jelly, pie, and wine.

A cool-season annual legume of the bean family (Fabaceae), also called broad bean, grown as a vegetable for its edible seeds and pods. NC State Extension describes a stiffly erect plant 2-6 feet tall with leaves of 2-6 leaflets and conspicuous toothed stipules, bearing fragrant white spring-and-summer flowers marked with a purplish or brown blotch. The fruit is a narrowly oblong flattened pod up to 11 inches long holding up to 6 large oval seeds. Like other legumes it fixes nitrogen from the air and is often used as a cover crop; it grows best in cool weather, with poor yields once daytime temperatures exceed the mid-70s.

A tough, medium-sized native tree of the eastern and midwestern United States, grown as much for its showy edible orange fruit as for its distinctive thick, dark gray bark broken into rectangular blocks. Small urn-shaped white-to-greenish-yellow flowers open in May and June, and the sweet fruit ripens after frost. Largely dioecious — a female tree needs a male pollinizer nearby to set fruit — and notably drought- and walnut-tolerant once established.

A small native tree with white spring flowers, edible summer berries, and copper to red fall color.

A tough, adaptable deciduous large shrub or small tree, Cornelian cherry (Cornus mas) opens clusters of bright yellow flowers on bare stems in late winter — among the earliest woody nectar of the year — then ripens glossy red, olive-shaped edible fruit and finishes with good autumn colour. Native to central and southern Europe and western Asia (POWO), it carries the RHS Award of Garden Merit and is rated fully hardy (H6).

The tart 'pie cherry' of the rose family, native to Europe and southwest Asia and grown for cooking, preserving, and baking rather than fresh eating. A small, rounded, spreading deciduous tree — typically 13-20 feet tall and wide — that bears clusters of white spring flowers followed by bright red, acidic drupes in early to midsummer. Unlike the sweet cherry (Prunus avium), most sour cherries are self-fertile, so a single tree will set a crop. The shorter stature, greater cold-hardiness, and self-fertility make it the easier cherry for a home garden.